Eggplant “Kabayaki” 茄子の蒲焼

This was the dish I made from the last remaining eggplant I got from Weee. With this dish I finished all the eggplants. I saw this recipe on YouTube. This is easy to make since the initial cooking is done by microwave. Visually it resembles eel kabayaki うなぎの蒲焼. I served this over fresh rice as a small donburi 丼 for “shime” 〆 ending dish one evening. This is quite unique and and a good way to serve eggplant.

Ingredients: (for two small servings)
1 Asian eggplant, stem end removed, peeled, cut into two equal pieces (This was a quite long slender eggplant)
2 tbs light olive oil

For the Kabayaki sauce
2 tbs sake
2 tbs mirin
2 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs sugar

Directions:
Prepare the kabayaki sauce by mixing all the ingredients in a small pan on medium heat and dissolving the sugar.
Cook the eggplant in the microwave using a silicon container for 2 minutes or until cooked through
When cool enough, cut the eggplant lengthwise but do not cut all the way through. Then open it up. You may need to add more parallel cuts (again not all the way through the eggplant) so that it makes flat rectangular pieces.
Add the oil in a frying pan on medium heat and put in the eggplant pieces (see below)

Once one side is nicely browned (2-3 minutes), carefully turn it over without breaking the pieces.

When both sides are nicely browned add the kabayaki sauce to coat the eggplant pieces and the sauce reduces a bit.

Drizzle some of the sauce on the rice and place the eggplant pieces over the rice. I sprinkled powdered “sansho” 粉山椒 Japanese pepper as though this was an eel kabayaki (optional).

Visually it is easy to believe this is really eel. The flavor of the sauce further supports the impression this is eel. Even the texture is very similar. The one thing that is missing, which gives away the fact this is not eel is the unctuous fattiness that is the characteristic essence of eel. Otherwise it is a very good facsimile.